Two of the largest U.S. airlines scrambled on Wednesday to rebook passengers whose flights were canceled when the Federal Aviation Administration followed its global counterparts in grounding Boeing’s 737 MAX.
American, which flew 145 million passengers in 2017, said it would make new travel arrangements for its customers “as quickly as possible” after learning of the FAA’s decision. The move followed mounting pressure after regulators worldwide cited similarities in the crash of a MAX flown by Ethiopian Airlines flight on Sunday with one six months earlier in Indonesia, both of which killed everyone aboard.
American flies 24 of the Boeing 737 MAX models, the latest variant of a single-aisle commercial jet that has long been an airline industry workhorse. While the MAX is Boeing’s best-selling plane ever, with more than 4,600 on order, fewer than 400 have been delivered and are in operation worldwide.
Southwest, which has 34 of the aircrafts, said they account for less than 5 percent of daily flights by its fleet of 750 planes. “During our 48-year history, Southwest has continuously demonstrated our commitment to safety,” CEO said Gary Kelly said in a statement. “The Southwest team is working diligently to minimize disruptions to our customers’ travel plans.”
Canada barred the MAX from its airspace earlier Tuesday, citing satellite data that showed fluctuations in the takeoff angle of the Ethiopian flight that mirrored those before the Indonesian crash. Air Canada, which flies 24 of the models and is the country’s largest airline, didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about the impact.
While there’s not enough information yet to conclude that the same problem occurred in both the Ethiopian and Indonesian crashes, “we decided that, given the comparison with the previous flight, it was prudent to make this decision,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a news conference in Ottawa.
Canada’s action follows similar moves in the European Union, as well as countries from China to the United Kingdom that briefly left the U.S. standing virtually alone in allowing flights by the 737 MAX 8. President Trump said shortly afterward that the U.S. would sideline the planes too.
“The safety of the American people, and all people is our paramount concern,” Trump told White House reporters when he announced the FAA’s decision. Regulators worldwide have said they are simply taking a precaution intended to protect passengers until the cause of the Ethiopian crash, which killed 157 people, is determined.
The circumstances of the disaster had immediately prompted comparisons with the Indonesian accident on Oct. 29, causing some passengers to avoid the relatively new airliner and U.S. politicians to urge more decisive action by the FAA.
In the Indonesian crash, which killed 189 people, a malfunctioning sensor on a 737 MAX 8 flown by Lion Air fed incorrect data on the airliner’s ascent vector to a computer system that attempted to lower the angle to avoid a stall, Garneau said.
That prompted a struggle between the plane’s computer system, known as Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, and the pilot, who ultimately lost control of the aircraft. U.S. regulators required airlines to update operations manuals on the handling of such issues.
“There were certain fluctuations in the vertical profile” of the Ethiopian Airlines plane akin to those of the aircraft in Indonesia, Garneau said. “This is not the proof that it is the same root problem, and it could be something else. We need to wait to see that data and hear the voices on the recorders, the black boxes that were found, which have more information.”
Garneau said his agency has been working closely with both the FAA, the certifying authority for the 737 MAX, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, and the office of Elaine Chao, Trump’s transportation secretary. There was no political pressure from the U.S., where Boeing is a leading manufacturer with close ties to the government, to allow the plane to keep flying, Garneau said.
Boeing, whose stock has tumbled nearly 12 percent to $373.84 since the Ethiopian crash, said it recommended the FAA’s move out of an “abundance of caution.” CEO Dennis Muilenburg had assured Trump of the aircraft’s reliability in a phone call just a day earlier.
“Safety is a core value at Boeing for as long as we have been building airplanes, and it always will be,” Muilenburg said in a statement. “There is no greater priority for our company and our industry. We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again.”
